Title: Birds of Prey (2020)
Director: Cathy Yan
Series? DCEU
Genre: Action
Triggers: Talk of dead parents, death, murder
Release Date: 06 February 2020 (Aus)
★★★☆☆
Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog! I recently saw BOP with a friend (who has now seen the movie 4 times yeesh) so I thought I’d write a review since I haven’t done one in a while!
I’ve seen the comparison between this and Scott pilgrim going around a bit lately and while I definitely agree with that comparison, I should probably preface this review by saying that I am not a fan of the Scott Pilgrim movie.
The Good
- I feel like this is a good movie for you if you really don’t like The Joker, but you still want more Harley Quinn content.
- All the actors were really good – especially Ewan McGregor and Margot Robbie – and Mary Elizabeth Winstead was a fun surprise
- Shows that Harley Quinn is bi or has been with women in the past and the cop lady is a lesbian – (BUT there are no word drops and the scenes can easily be taken out for other audiences, so it’s up to you if you think that’s good rep or not, I lean more on the ‘not’ camp)
- Mary Elizabeth Winstead was fantastic, but there wasn’t enough of her!
The Bad
- Zaz and roman were meant to be a couple??? I definitely didn’t get that vibe from them! I mostly got a Zaz manipulating Roman vibe rather than anything else.
- This movie is VERY anti-men (all men are anti-women) – all men are misogynistic? I think if you think of this movie as unreliable because it’s told from Harley’s pov it makes more sense, especially because she didn’t see everything anyway, but yeah, there is not one “good” man in this movie.
- Some people really loved the humour but I think it could’ve been funnier. I really only found Ewan McGregor funny and mostly it was just because he was being batshit insane. Basically, if he hadn’t been so committed to the role, I don’t think it would’ve worked at all.
- Ridiculous costumes – apart from Harley Quinn who actually looked like a person instead of a sex doll (I choose to think that she chose to finally dress how she wanted to instead of through the eyes of the Joker.)
- This movie didn’t make sense to be honest. It’s been roughly a week since I saw the movie and I still don’t understand why Canary had her powers. Like, her mum had powers but, how did she get them??? And no one else had powers in the movie so it didn’t really fit at all???
- This is rated r in the US?? Like, I honestly don’t think it deserves the rating – there are some F bombs and a few knees bending the wrong way but that’s about it. But, that could also be because I think the US rating system is crazy harsh. In Australia, this is only rated MA (15+) which makes total sense to me.
- Can you imagine a John Wick style BOP?? *chefs kiss*
- Didn’t need Montoya tbh.
- I wasn’t a big fan of Cassandra Cain, she was an AWFUL pickpocket. Honestly, the movie didn’t really need her either. I would’ve ditched Montoya and Cain and instead, spent more time developing the other characters OR introduced a different character like, Poison Ivy which would have been amazing and could’ve added more lgbt representation.
ONE SPOILER THOUGHT (highlight it to read)
- I honestly wish Black Mask hadn’t died – he was finally getting some potential as a villain towards the end of the movie and Ewan McGregor was really good in the role. It would’ve been interesting to see him again in a later film, with a proper vendetta against Harley, and maybe working with together with different villains? Also, can you imagine how much scarier he would’ve been if that mask was his actual face, like in the comics???
So, that’s what I thought of Birds of Prey, it was pretty average and felt similar to Scott Pilgrim vs The World, but, the cast was great and it gives more depth to Harley Quinn as a character. Hopefully, they won’t ditch all of Margot Robbie’s hard work in Suicide Squad 2! It had some high points, but it just wasn’t the movie for me. That being said, you should still support this movie because you might love it and because it’s definitely unlike any superhero movie I’ve ever seen!
HAVE YOU SEEN BOP?
WHERE DO YOU STAND ON THE BOP CONTROVERSY?
an
allonsythornraxx 
See I have to disagree Ewan McGregor could keep an American accent if you glued it to him, i found his performance meh at best.
I feel like a lot of this movie is contextual and like if you know who Cassandra Cain becomes it all makes it more interesting…. but utterly agree outside of the context a lot of it doesn’t make sense… I feel like often DC doesn’t explain enough and expects it’s the audience to already be hardcore fans… which leaves those who are just discovering the DCverse out in the dark a lot!
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Haha, I haven’t seen many of his movies so that’s probably why I was so impressed!
I agree, I’m not much of a DC fan unless it’s Superman so I only knew a little about her!
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